


Pay Dearly

by momentsintimex



Series: Everything Happens [1]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Cemetery, Connor is dead, Gen, Grieving, Letters, i'm sorry in advance, this is just... i don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 06:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentsintimex/pseuds/momentsintimex
Summary: Admittedly, Zoe hadn’t really paid attention to Connor’s handwriting the last few years. The note could be years old. She isn’t even sure Connor had handwritten anything lately. He had mostly stopped doing his schoolwork years ago. Stopped interacting with everyone.Mostly just spent his time getting high and torturing his sister.But just like Zoe thinks she’d always remember that Connor’s favorite book as a kid was "Where The Wild Things Are", or how he would always laugh when she would jump off the sofa trying to be Wonder Woman, she’d always remember his handwriting.Connor had left a letter for her.





	Pay Dearly

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "Pay Dearly" by Johnnyswim.
> 
> no TWs i don't think. if i missed any please let me know!

Grief is a weird thing.

Zoe doesn’t know that she’s ever experienced it fully — at least not to the way that she had seen in movies. She’s never laid on her bed sobbing until she can’t breathe, she’s never punched something out of anger or felt her heart break or cave in her chest when she gets the bad news.

There have been moments where she thought she should be grieving. Thought maybe she should cry, should be upset. Like when her brother died, and everyone around her was crying. People who didn’t even know him were crying, so why wasn’t she? Why couldn’t she just grieve her brother the way that everyone else had?

Connor had been found at the base of a large oak tree in the park just after 8pm after the first day of school, a bottle of pills laying next to his hand. He was breathing — barely — and was rushed to the hospital in an attempt to save his life.

He died just before midnight, both of his parents by his side.

Zoe remembers exactly where she was when she heard that her brother was found — in her room, working on last minute summer packets and texting her friends. Her parents had been frantically looking for Connor. Calling his phone, calling around to anyone who may have seen him. Her mom was crying, yelling at someone on the phone about how this was her _baby_ , that she needed more help than what she and her husband could do.

She slammed the phone down more than once. And didn’t bother telling Zoe when they were leaving to go look for Connor themselves.

It was Cynthia who found him. Zoe doesn’t ask what he looked like or if her mom even kept it together. She isn’t sure if she wants to know, or if she just doesn’t care about those details. She thinks maybe she doesn’t care.

She wishes she did.

She didn’t go to the hospital. Partly because she was naive and thought maybe Connor would live. That this was all some joke like the last time he tried to kill himself, and she’d see him the next morning when her parents dragged her to the hospital to visit.

But that didn’t happen this time. Instead her grandmother came over close to midnight, tears in her eyes and a worn out look on her face. And told her that her brother was dead. That he had killed himself and her parents wouldn’t be home for a few hours while they talked with doctors and whatever else they had to do when their son just died.

It’s the first time Zoe cried herself to sleep over Connor.

The viewing and funeral are terrible, not that Zoe thinks any funeral is enjoyable. There are hundreds of people there. Extended family, family friends, and everyone in between line the pews. They take the time to say some words to the family, saying how sorry they are for their loss, how Connor was such a vibrant and bright young man, and that they’re so sorry that this happened.

It takes everything in Zoe not to laugh. Because if these people knew Connor at all, even know half of the person he was and how horrible he was to her, then they wouldn’t be saying any of this. Because if there’s one thing she did know, it was that her brother was not a nice person, and there was absolutely no one who could convince her otherwise.

She stands next to her father at the cemetery while her brother’s casket sits in front of them. Watches everyone around her dab their eyes with tissues, hears the sniffles through the crowd that had gathered while the priest says his final thoughts before they say goodbye to Connor forever.

Zoe barely cries through the whole service. Not anything like her mother, who sobs the whole time and can’t really keep it together. Her father doesn’t cry either, and Zoe thinks he looks totally in denial about it all. Which she hates. She thinks he should care more. It was his son, after all.

Zoe walks away from the casket when the service ends before anyone can try to talk to her.

—

The weeks after the funeral were an odd time for Zoe. Everyone at school paid attention to her because she was the dead kid’s sister. People tried to talk to her, tried to be friends. Some said how sorry they were for her loss and how if she ever wanted to talk they could always come to her. That they understood that she needed support right now and they were willing to be that.

She ignored them all.

None of them understood. None of them had lost a sibling, none of them had gone through what she went through before he died, how she felt about her brother for the last few years. She didn’t want to talk to anyone because she hated her brother and she didn’t care that he was gone and he was a bad person who ruined her life most of the time.

She also didn’t tell anyone that.

She let them think that she and Connor were closer than they were. That they were friendly and things were okay between them. She’s too tired to fight it, too tired to tell people she didn’t even know that she and her brother didn’t like each other, that they were the furthest thing from close.

She ignores most things when it comes to Connor. She doesn’t help with the little things like putting away some of the things in his room, or asking her mom how she’s doing that day since everything had happened. It had been weeks, her mother cries almost daily, and her dad acts like nothing ever happened.

It’s the most dysfunctional family Zoe thinks she’s ever met.

She decides that her way of helping out is by cleaning out her room. Putting things away, making it look more presentable. Cynthia had always been asking her to do this. Always asking her to go through her clothes, donate things to charity and declutter her room now that she was older. So she figures now is probably a good time to do it.

Maybe it would make her mom happy.

She starts small, going through her nightstand and organizing her books. Moving onto her closet, making a pile of things to donate.

She moves to her dresser, opening the top drawer. Planning to just reorganize it. Make it so the drawer actually closes around her excessive pile of socks she has that she can’t seem to part with.

She begins pulling them all out. Tossing them on the floor in piles, charged with the task of making pairs again instead of having to sort through them all. She’s exhausted already, but her mom is down the hall in her room and she really doesn’t want to upset her anymore by only doing half of it, so. She takes her anger out on her messes.

And watches as an envelope falls to the ground with the pile of socks she had pulled out.

Her eyebrows furrow, bending down to pick up the envelope. It’s a simple white one, the kind that her mom had boxes of in the kitchen for reasons Zoe never understood. It’s not like her mom spent her time writing out letters to people.

She walks over to her bed, clearing a space and sitting down as she turns the envelope over. Her breath catches in her throat.

It’s Connor’s handwriting.

Admittedly, Zoe hadn’t really paid attention to Connor’s handwriting the last few years. The note could be years old. She isn’t even sure Connor had handwritten anything lately. He had mostly stopped doing his schoolwork years ago. Stopped interacting with everyone.

Mostly just spent his time getting high and torturing his sister.

But just like Zoe thinks she’d always remember that Connor’s favorite book as a kid was _Where The Wild Things Are_ , or how he would always laugh when she would jump off the sofa trying to be Wonder Woman, she’d always remember his handwriting.

Connor had left a letter for her.

Her hands shake as she fumbles with the envelope. He had licked it shut. Something Zoe can only assume is to annoy her from the dead as she tries to open it.

He had folded a piece of notebook paper in thirds, uneven and messy. A lot like how Connor was as a person.

Zoe hates that she feels like she can’t breathe. Hates that she feels nervous, that she feels like she’s going to throw up because she’s holding a letter from her brother in her hand and she doesn’t know what it’s going to say.

She thinks about just throwing it out. Forgetting that Connor had even left it for her. Just let herself think that he had gone and killed himself and didn’t leave a note, but now she found a letter in her top drawer that he obviously left there for a reason. Each time she goes to toss it in the trash her mind is plagued with guilt that she’s like, letting her brother down or something, or just ignoring the one thing that he had left behind before he went and ruined their lives one final time.

Which. Is stupid. Because Connor certainly didn’t care about her feelings when he was alive and she didn’t care about him but now she does and she hates it because she just wants to forget about it all. Forget that her brother was awful and now he’s gone and how there were probably a million things she could’ve done better.

She closes her eyes. Takes a shaky breath. And opens the letter.

Connor’s handwriting wasn’t neat. It was just barely legible, and looks like it was written quickly, like he was in a rush or something. Zoe wonders when he did this. When he wrote the letter and left it for her. How far in advance he had been planning all of this.

_Zoe,_

_It’s two days before the first day of school. I don’t know when you’re going to find this. I don’t know if I’m going to be dead or alive when you come across this note, but I hope I’m dead. I think you’ll feel the same way honestly._

_I was an awful person the last few years. Yelling at you, threatening to kill you. I don’t think I meant any of it. You weren’t the problem. You didn’t help it, but you weren’t the only problem. I shouldn’t have taken it all out on you._

_I hope that now that I’m gone you can go on to live the life you’ve always wanted. You can be happy and you don’t have to worry about hiding the fact that you have a brother who’s a freak. You and mom and dad can be the little family that they always wanted. Without me in it. Without me ruining things._

_I’m sorry for everything that I ever did to you. I’m sorry for the nights I terrified you, made you lock yourself in your room or run away to your friends house when I threatened to kill you. I’m sorry for being the brother that you had to answer questions for when I was sent to rehab and missed school. I’m sorry I gave you the reputation in school that I did all because you were related to a freak. None of it was your fault._

_If you’re reading this and I’m dead… which I hope I am… I hope you have a happier life now. That things aren’t as hard. That maybe you can smile again and bring friends over and do everything that you couldn’t do when I was alive._

_Maybe mom and dad will let you get therapy. To talk about everything I did to mess you up. They always liked you more anyway. I bet you could convince them. You’re good at convincing them to do things._

_I’m sorry Zoe. I hope the rest of your life is happier than it was when we were teenagers. You deserve that._

_Your brother,_

_Connor._

Zoe chews on her lip. Watches her tears fall against the letter. And then desperately tries to compose herself when there’s a knock on her bedroom door.

“What are you doing?” The door opens to reveal Cynthia. She looks exhausted, Zoe thinks. She can’t remember the last time her mother wore makeup, and with each passing day the purple circles under her eyes got darker. Zoe always wonders how much she sleeps at night, if at all. She figures maybe her mom could like… go to therapy or talk to someone because she found her son on the brink of death and then stood at his side as he died and now she’s just… grieving in an awful way.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever get help.

“I’m cleaning out my drawers. Getting things together to donate. I don’t know, just thought maybe it would busy my mind. Distract me for a while,” Zoe shrugs. And shoves the note from her brother underneath her pillow.

Cynthia raises her eyebrows. Sighs. And hovers her hand over her doorknob. “Okay, well I’m going to go get something to eat. I think… I think your father and I might go through some of your brother’s things tonight.” She bites her lip. Zoe knows she’s probably going to cry. “Maybe we can go to the donation center this weekend. Drop some things off.”

Zoe nods. Watches her mom shut the door once more. And stands up to finish cleaning everything up, continuing to sort through things.

She finishes her drawers in record time. Tossing things she didn’t wear. Throwing things back in without thinking about it. Her mind is drawn to the note, still hiding underneath her pillow. How her brother had taken the time before he killed himself to write her a note apologizing for being an awful brother.

She doesn’t know how to feel about it. Of all people she thought Connor could’ve written to, she didn’t think it’d be her.

They were inseparable when they were younger. Constantly making up games, spending their hours outside until the sun had set and the cool breeze blew through the trees in the summer months. Making snow angels and having snowball fights in the winter. They had countless sleepovers, told far too many stories, and laughed until they couldn’t breathe more often than not.

It changed when Connor turned 14. And started becoming awful. Yelling at her, calling her a freak and a bitch and every other name under the sun. He didn’t start threatening to kill her until he was 16. Chasing her up the steps. Banging on her door when she would slam it in his face.

In the beginning she used to long for the days where they were best friends again. She used to plead to _anyone_ listening to her when she was in her room to just give her brother back. Let them be best friends again. Let Connor be normal.

Eventually she started calling him names right back. A psychopath, crazy, telling him that she hated him. Told him how he was ruining her life. He always yelled back. He always fought back with her.

She started ignoring him not long after that.

There were a million things she could’ve done to help him. She could’ve been more understanding. Talked to him. Talked to her parents about getting him help. But. She didn’t. She didn’t say anything to him. She just ignored the problem. Ignored her brother. And now she was going to have to live with that for the rest of her life.

She looks around her room once more. Picks up little things she had left out. And suddenly feels lighter. Like maybe cleaning everything up and donating things did work.

It comes crashing down when she remembers the letter. And she walks over, pulling it out again.

The sun is beginning to set, the last of the warm weather is beginning to leave them. Zoe hates this time of year, where it gets colder and darker earlier and she’s left with having to suffer through the grey and dreary days of Winter. She knows realistically they’re going to eat dinner soon. Her dad would come home from work. Have a glass of wine with his wife, eat dinner in silence with the two of them, and then retreat to the garage until it’s dark out and most people in the neighborhood are thinking about going to bed.

But Zoe can’t shake the feeling of going somewhere that she needs to go. And so she grabs her jacket, shoving the letter into the pocket. And runs downstairs, pausing in the kitchen.

“Piper asked me to come over and help her with some English thing. It won’t take me long. Maybe an hour. I’ll definitely be home in time for dinner.” Zoe rolls her ankle idly, her hands shoved in her coat pocket, fingers on the note.

Cynthia looks skeptical. Like if she lets Zoe go somewhere out of her sight for more than five minutes she’ll leave her. Just like Connor did. Zoe hates that her brother has done this to them.

“Okay, honey,” Cynthia says quietly. She looks like she’s torn up about letting her go. “Just please let me know if it’s going to take longer than an hour. I just… I’d like to know where you are.”

Zoe nods. Walks into the kitchen and kisses her mom on the cheek. And then turns back, slips her shoes on, grabs her car keys. And runs to the car before she can change her mind.

Lying to her mom is bad, she knows. She knows she should’ve just said she was going to the cemetery. That she wanted to go see Connor’s grave. But her mom would’ve wanted to come, and she would’ve been so happy that Zoe was finally going to visit after she swore that she would never visit him again one night over dinner, and then she’d probably cry. Zoe just doesn’t think she can take that, not right now. And so she just… lies. Says she’s going to a friends.

But drives straight for the cemetery instead.

He’s buried on the other side of town, back in the back corner of the cemetery. Zoe mazes her way through, bypassing a few others visiting their loved ones. They look sad, Zoe thinks. She doesn’t think she looks quite like them.

She parks her car over the the side, walking through the headstones. Connor’s plot is still mostly dirt, with a few pieces of grass starting to grow back in. It’s definitely the newest grave dug in his section.

Zoe gets closer and notices a small bouquet of flowers set out next to his headstone. She figures they’re from her mom, who had spent days trying to convince Zoe to come to the cemetery to see the headstone now that it was done and installed.

She said no every time.

She takes a moment, looking at it. It’s simple, Zoe thinks. Just his name and his birthday and the day he died. It makes it look like he didn’t kill himself. That it wasn’t his fault he was dead.

She figures her mom probably designed it that way on purpose.

She sits down to the side, where there’s no dirt and the grass is fully grown back. Takes a deep breath. Runs her fingers over the cool stone. And sits in silence for a moment.

She doesn’t even know why she came here. She’s seen people talk to headstones. Sit with them for a while. She never understood why. Why people just… went and talked to them. It’s not like they understood what they were saying. It’s not like they would answer back.

“I swore I'd never come here,” Zoe says. Mostly to herself. She tucks her legs underneath her, folding her hands on her lap. “I swore that the day we buried you was the last time I would see this place when it came to visiting you. And now… I made it three weeks.” She laughs at how pathetic that sounds.

There's silence. The sun is setting just over the fence next to her. She can hear the slow traffic off on the road beside his grave. She can hear the birds chirping in the tree just feet away.

She thinks that’s ironic. That he’s buried near an oak tree. Just like how he was found lifeless underneath one.

“I found your note today,” She tries again. Her voice sounds foreign. Like maybe this is some sort of out of body experience that she doesn’t really understand or can really grasp that it’s happening to her. “What the fuck, Connor? Hiding it in my top drawer? Underneath everything?”

She pauses. Looks up, notices an older man a few rows back. And bites her lip. “I hate you. I hate that you did this. I hate that you just fucking went and killed yourself like the selfish person that you are. I mean Connor, what the actual fuck.”

Another pause. A shaky breath. “Mom hasn’t stopped crying. You really fucked us all over, Connor, but I don’t even think you thought about Mom. She’s devastated. I’m pretty sure she blames herself. I told her not to. But she doesn’t listen.”

Zoe feels ridiculous. She hates that she’s doing this. She hates that she can feel herself about to cry. “I just… I don’t forgive you for what you did to me,” She exhales. “You were awful. You ruined my life, Connor. You made it a living nightmare. And I just… how am I just supposed to forgive you for that?”

“I know you were messed up and you had a lot of issues but you literally told me you wanted to kill me. I just… I can’t, Connor. I can’t sit here and say that I forgive you just because you’re dead.” She winces. It still doesn’t feel like he’s gone.

“And I know that you wanted help and Mom and Dad didn’t help you nearly enough or as much as they should have, but what the actual fuck telling me that they’ll get me therapy if I want it? How could you assume that I did? And why would you think that it would go any better than it did when you wanted it? They don’t love me more than you. They never did. Mom especially. So you can like fuck off with that in your letter to me.”

She shifts her weight, grabbing the letter from her pocket. She wants to crumple it up. Bury it in the dirt that’s covering his casket. And forget about it for the rest of her life. But she knows it’s the only thing she has left of her brother. The only thing that he had specifically left for her. And as much as she hates him for what he did, she can’t let it go.

So she folds it neatly, holding it between her fingers. “Our lives won’t be happier without you here, just so you know. I don’t… I don’t know how it even gets better for us after this. Like, I really sometimes think that this is as good as it’s going to get when it comes to processing all of this. Maybe one day Mom will stop crying over every little thing that reminds her of you — which is a lot, by the way — or maybe one day Dad will stop living in denial and acknowledge that his son is dead. But I don’t know.”

She reaches out, running her fingers along the headstone once more. “I don’t know that I’ll be back here again. I just… I don’t know. This is a lot, okay? Like, you did this, Connor. And I just don’t know how to act like me visiting my older brother’s grave is a normal thing. But thanks for the letter, I guess. I um, I’ll talk to you later.”

She stands up, straightening out her jacket and wiping the dirt from her knees. And turns back before she starts crying.

“Excuse me?” Zoe looks up, noticing the older man from before. Her eyes are blurred with tears, and if it wasn’t disrespectful to ignore him and run back to her car, she probably would have. “I couldn’t help but overhear some of what you were saying. To your brother?”

Zoe nods.

“I lost my brother when I was about your age. In the war. We had told him not to go, that he was going to die there. He and I fought about it up until he left, and I didn’t say goodbye. I blamed him for a lot of the reason why my mother was so sad for the first few months.” Zoe doesn’t know why he’s telling her this. “I’m not sure what happened to your brother, but it doesn’t sound like you guys were left on good terms either.”

“We weren’t,” She says. Gives him a small smile. And blinks away a few tears that had run down her cheeks. “We um, we hadn’t been for a few years.”

The man nods. “Well, I can tell you that it does get better. You should let yourself forgive yourself for leaving it on bad terms. It took me a while to accept it. But I think your brother would want you to forgive yourself. Tell yourself that it’s not your fault.”

Zoe wants to scream at this man. That her brother hated her, that he threatened to kill her and she has no reason to blame herself. But she knows this man is only trying to help. So she smiles at him, and thanks him softly.

“It’ll get easier with time. But you have to let people help you through it.”

“Thank you,” Zoe says softly. Smiles at the man once more, and walks back to her car.

She sits in the cemetery for a few minutes, trying to collect herself and willing herself to stop crying. That her mom will worry and she’ll have to tell her that she lied and went to the cemetery instead.

She turns the car on when she thinks she looks better, sets off for home, and takes a moment in the driveway to collect herself again.

Her mom smiles when she walks in. “Did everything go okay with Piper’s project?” She asks, turning when she hears Zoe walk into the kitchen. “Zoe?”

Zoe stands in the doorway to the kitchen, biting her lip as her eyes blur with tears. She knows she looks a mess. She just hopes her dad doesn’t walk in.

“Zoe, honey, what’s wrong? Did something happen at Piper’s?” Cynthia sets the spoon down, walks over to her daughter, and tucks a piece of hair behind her ears.

Zoe takes a shaky breath, uses the sleeves of her jacket to wipe under her eyes. And forces herself to speak before she lies to her mom again.

“I want to see a grief counselor. To talk… about Connor.”

Cynthia frowns. Pulls Zoe into a hug. And squeezes her against her while Zoe properly cries. Rubbing her back doesn’t feel like enough to comfort her, but Cynthia doesn’t know what else to do. She doesn’t know how to fix this, not by herself. Not in the moment.

“Okay, sweetheart,” Cynthia mumbles, swaying back and forth in the middle of the kitchen. “If that’s what you want, then we’ll find someone in the area to talk to.”

And Zoe nods, unable to say anything else.

She goes up to her room to calm down. And thinks that maybe Connor is right. Maybe talking to someone will make her feel better.

Maybe it’ll make her hate him less. Make her less resentful for everything he did to her and how was so selfish in killing himself.

She tries not to get her hopes up.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm really sorry about this i don't know where it came from but like, here we are! i'm thinking of writing one about larry and cynthia finding letters to, but i'm not sure yet. if that's something you'd like let me know :)
> 
> you can find me on tumblr if you'd like: for-f0rever.tumblr.com :) 
> 
> thank you for reading! <3


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